What is the reason for Qantas flight award discrepancy? Available from A to C via B bit not B to C

Flights & Airfares
1

I’m searching for Singapore to Dubai for 30 August and there are no business class seats available at all.

However, if I search Kuala Lumpur - Dubai (via Singapore), there are business class seats, including the Singapore leg I search for above.

So the system is showing available seats if I start my journey in KL but not Singapore. Is this a common problem with Qantas and how do I get around this?

2

Hi @joshuado.4

I think you’ve encountered something known as a “married segment”. It’s not just a Qantas thing and is actually reasonably common all around the world.

Basically it means that airlines make seats available on a complete itinerary (in this case Kuala Lumpur to Dubai via Singapore), but not on individual flights within that itinerary (in this case, the Singapore-Dubai leg of the itinerary).

Do a Google search on “married segments” if you want to find out more about this.

How do you get around it? There are two options:

  • Wait to see if the Singapore-Dubai leg becomes available to book on a future date (this is very risky in the current climate).

  • Book the KL to Dubai ticket. NB you MUST then begin your journey in Kuala Lumpur – if you don’t show up in KL they’ll immediately cancel your entire ticket. You do need to be flexible: this is the sort of short hop that I frequently do in the world of Point Hacking in order to get the flights I want. It really is no big deal.

I hope this helps!

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